Mame imports - but games wont load

[darkmenace]

Hi all

I can't get mame roms to load from Launchbox 13.1 or BigBox. I have imported them using the wizard and told mame to use mame 0.251 installed in my main launchbox\emulators folder. I'll get straight into what I have tried and verified to this point:

1. I am using a limited number of non-merged mame 0.251 roms.

2. I have run mame -verifyroms romname on each and all came back as good.

3. I am able to load each game through Mame 251 (either command line or mame interface) without problems. 

4. When i right click on any game in launchbox and click Play the blank cmd prompt screen flashes up for a second and goes away. 

5. When in Launchbox if i manually click launch with > retroarch > mamelibreto the game loads. The reason I don't want to use retroarch is this is an arcade cabinet and it quits back to mame GUI when I exit a game rather than back to launchbox/bigbox, and other reading suggests there is no way around this. 

6. It didn't matter when the wizard asked whether to use files from where they are or move/copy them what option I selected, the problem persisted. Attached are some hopefully helpful screenshots. Note image 2 shows ffight.zip when i clicked on properties of double dragon 2 and any other game. Final Fight is one of the games in my collection. 

7. I have manually validated multiple times that path's are correct. 

Any ideas at this point would be greatly appreciated, as I am all out of clues.

Thanks

dm

Edited February 8, 2023 by darkmenace

[darkmenace]

Found the solution which I am posting in case it helps somebody else. Hopefully someone with more knowledge than me can explain it.

I went

1. Launchbox > Tools > Manage > Emulators > Deleted the Mame emulator from the list.

2. Under the same Manage Emulators section, I clicked Add button (bottom left), selected Mame as the emulator. It found the right version from the Launchbox\Emulators\Mame251 folder I had there. Although I did have to manually populate the path box. 

Once I did that, games started loading.

If anyone knows how to get Bigbox to go straight into the Arcade Games section, rather than showing the systems wheel with 20 "Arcade" options which all obviously go to the same place, I would appreciate some advice on how to set that up. Wasn't really worth a new thread. 

Edited February 8, 2023 by darkmenace

[C-Beats]

In Big Box options you can just have it open to "All Games" instead of "Platforms"

[darkmenace]

9 hours ago, C-Beats said:

In Big Box options you can just have it open to "All Games" instead of "Platforms"

Thanks C-Beats. I found that option. Unfortunately, it changes the look. Screenshot 1 is what I get when I change the view to "All Games", but I prefer the look I get when It's on Platforms. Is there anyway to set "All Games" and still get the look in Screenshot 2 that you know of?

[C-Beats]

Not entirely sure what Unified theme that is, but you should be able to just copy the Arcade platform view file to the root view and name it appropriately to work. There should be a file called something like WheelGamesView with a folder that matches and has files in there. You'd find the arcade file in that folder, move it up one level then rename it WheelGamesView (deleting the one you had before). I'd make a copy of the theme before doing this so that you can revert if you break something.